newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB WILLIAMS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Here we go again.

New York Football Giants tickets have been part of my family's life for 75 years. Seventy five years! Which makes my family — the Williams family — among the longest ticket holders in Giants history.

We've gone from two seats in the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium in New York City to a pair of seats here at Giants Stadium smack in the middle of the Meadowlands. Yesterday's game was the last regularly scheduled football game here. Next season we move again — to a brand new stadium right next door.

So here we go again.

Seventy five years may sound impressive, but I must tell you right now that I'm not a real one-hundred-percent-dyed-in-the-wool Giants fan. I'm a fair weather fan.

If the weather's too cold, I don't attend. If the weather's rainy, I don't attend. If the weather's too hot (believe me, a pre-season August game in broiling Giants Stadium can suck out the oxygen from even the best of fans), I don't attend. If its snowing outside, I don't attend. In fact, lately, at my age, if a home game's played too late at night, I don't attend.

My father, on the other hand, was the ultimate Giants fan. And I guess that's where I inherited this Giants allegiance. He bought his first Giants season tickets when the Giants played at the Polo Grounds — probably in the late 1930's. Before long, the Giants moved to Yankee stadium.

My father, Fred P. Williams, was newspaper Linotype operator during the week (he died on the job at the News York Post). But on weekends, he would listen on radio, and later watch on television, nothing but baseball or football. Or both. And if the Giants were playing at home, everyone who knew my family knew that my father would attend the game. I'm talking the 1950s here.

I mean, if it was pouring that Sunday morning, my father would put on a raincoat and go to the game. If it was snowing, or even a blizzard, he would put on a heavy parker and go to the game. If the temperature outside was two degrees, he would add long underwear and gloves and go to the game.

Now that's a football fan!

When I got to be a little older, and somewhat understood the game, my father took me to my first Giants football game. That's when I discovered how he could be such a great football fan week after week, season after season.

You see, our seats at Yankee Stadium were in the mezzanine, on about the 35 yard line. Not bad. We had a steel girder partially in the way. But my father explained to me that it was the row that made the difference. The row we were in was far enough back to be covered by the upper deck overhang.

So come rain, sleet, snow — whatever — my father went out into the elements for only about a block — the block he walked from our house to the bus. Once he boarded the bus, he was protected from adverse weather —- on the bus, on the ferry (we lived in Staten Island) and on the Lexington Ave. subway line all the way up to Yankee Stadium. At the stadium, he was protected through the whole game.

My father was in the stands at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. Midway through the game, the public address announcer (a young Arther Daley, who went on to become a sports columnist for The News York Times) began calling all uniformed military personnel to immediately return to their units. Pearl Harbor had been bombed earlier that morning, Giants fans later learned. But that detail was never mentioned during the game, and the game continued to its conclusion.

About 10 years ago, I brought my youngest son, Jonathan, to a pre-season luncheon that the Giants throw every August in Manhattan. After the speeches and meal, Jonathan rushed to the dais to get player autographs. He recognized Giants owner Wellington Mara, and struck up a conversation. When an excited Jonathan told Wellington that my father was at Yankee Stadium on that infamous Dec. 7, Wellington began to tell Jonathan all about the game that had been played that day. The two were having a grand old time: my son, in his early twenties, and Wellington Mara, in his eighties.

They talked Giants talk, like regular fans, for 20 minutes. Everyone had left the ballroom. Mara had bodyguards, but he motioned them away until he and Jonathan finished chatting. It's often been said that Giants fans came first with Wellington Mara. I saw it firsthand. And I never forget that incident.

When the Giants moved here in 1976, I lost seating yardage, so to speak. I still had two seats in the mezzanine, but I was now on the 25 yard line — and with no roof over my head. Oh, well.

Roof or no roof, that location didn't last long.